


because I'm made out of glue

by Distressedegg



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Slight Internalized Homophobia, remus has some issues with anxiety a bit, sirius family are still dicks, swearing because theyre teenage boys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2018-12-24 15:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Distressedegg/pseuds/Distressedegg
Summary: Sirius Black comes to their school when Remus is fifteen years old and scared of being alone and scared of being with people. He turns up in the maths class he shares with James Potter in the school’s ugly grey blazer with his tie hanging loosely around his neck. He saunters in and drops himself into his seat and Remus whisperswankerunder his breath. He’s got dark hair and high cheekbones and the type of face Remus could only describe as pretty





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I did this at like 1am and tried to change the summary but accidentally put it here in the notes so like yeah go me, from that you can probably already tell this is going to be terrible because i have no idea what's going on ever. Also title is velvet underground lyrics

Sirius Black comes to their school when Remus is fifteen years old and scared of being alone and scared of being with people. He turns up in the maths class he shares with James Potter in the school’s ugly grey blazer with his tie hanging loosely around his neck. He saunters in and drops himself into his seat and Remus whispers _wanker_ under his breath. He’s got dark hair and high cheekbones and the type of face Remus could only describe as pretty

He sits behind Remus and James and drums his fingers on the hard wood of the desk for most of the class until he leans forward and whispers ‘either one of you got a pen I could borrow?’

Remus knows James barley ever brings the right books to class, let alone spare pens. He almost tells the guy he doesn’t, just to spite him, but he hands him one anyway.

 

Sirius and James get along right away, in a way Remus could never get along with anybody. It makes him feel out of place, more than he usually does with James.

He’s not good at talking, but James and Sirius and Peter make up for that. They never stop talking. He sits with them at lunchtime and meets up with them before school and listens to James and Sirius make fun of teachers and Peter hurriedly try and imitate their humour.

 

 

Sirius gets suspended two weeks into term.

It’s right after James tells him about Lucius Malfoy and how he makes the younger students do what he wants because they’re all terrified of him.

He tries to get Sirius to steal from the school canteen for him. Sirius tells him to fuck off and sets his locker on fire 3 days later.

He tells James and his mouth hangs open and his eyes are wide and he blinks three times before saying _‘you can’t stand up to the sixth years.’_

The news spreads around the school before lunchtime, and Sirius gets called into Professor McGonagall’s office halfway through fifth period and Remus doesn’t see him for another week.

 

 

‘I have a theory,’ Sirius says as he seats himself to Remus in History. ‘That if you didn’t stop him, James would talk about Lily Evans until he died of exhaustion.’

Remus snorts a breath of laughter without meaning to, which gets a smile from Sirius in return.

“Please have your prep open on the desk in front of you.” Professor Binns says tiredly from the front of the classroom. Remus doesn’t understand why the guy isn’t in a retirement home yet.

“Quick, Remus I need to copy yours. My tutor says I’m going to have to start going to catch-up on Fridays if I don’t start handing in prep.” Sirius whispers across to him.

“What? Sirius, no, you can’t rewrite the entire fucking essay in the time it takes Professor Binns to check everyone-” but Sirius is taking the notebook from his hand and flipping through it. Remus sighs and lets his head fall into his hands.

Sirius returns the book before Professor Binns reaches them. He pushes his dark hair behind his ears and smiles smugly at Remus at the teacher nods in approval at the messily written page. He does the same when he moves onto Remus neater page.

“How?” Remus asks incredulously when the professor has moved out of earshot

“He never even reads past the introduction. I don’t think he can even see” Sirius pushes his notebook over to Remus, who realises there’s only ripped out notes from earlier classes past the first paragraph.

 

 _‘Fucking fourthies’_ Remus hears one of the older kids scream and runs alongside James and Sirius. He feels out of place. He stays out of this, usually. Sirius and James’ are known by everyone as the kids who fuck around and mess things up and who you don’t want to be on the bad side of.

‘They’ll suspect us,’ James had said in convincing Remus to help. ‘They won’t suspect you.’

They convince him to throw a firecracker under the table where the sixth formers are eating lunch. He lights it with hands shaking with nerves and a brain saying _don’t do it don’t do it don’t-_ but he does it and it goes off so loud he jumps even though he was prepared and he’s running before he knows what he’s doing. He runs to where James and Sirius are waiting and he keeps running. They catch up to him and they’re laughing and laughing and they get to the edge of the school and they’re still laughing and they can’t stop.

Remus feels _good._ He feels at home, even with shaking hands and a racing heart, like he was born to be forced out of his comfort zone by James Potter and Sirius Black. He thinks that maybe he can get along with people the way he sees everyone else do.

‘What do you have next period?’ James asks when they stop to catch their breaths.

‘Religion.’ Remus replies. He knows where this is going.

‘That’s not a real class.’ James says. ‘Come with us into town.’

Remus heart is still racing and his hands are still shaking slightly. He knows he should turn around and go to class, but Sirius tugs on his sleeve and says ‘Come _on_ , Remus.’ and Sirius Black is the type of person you don’t really know how to say no to, and in that moment with adrenaline still running through his veins he doesn’t think he could stand an hour of Professor Slughorn and his anti-Semitic teaching of the Bible.

They sneak through to the back of the school and over the low fence that divides the campus from the woods behind, lest a teacher notice them leave through the front.

Remus plays with the already fraying cuff of his Blazer and looks behind them with every sound until Sirius says ‘we’re not going to be killed if we get found out, you know.’

Going into town turns out to mean following James and Sirius along a dirt path through the woods and sitting down against a log in the first clearing they come to.

Sirius pulls a joint out of his school blazer pocket and Remus thinks _of course_ and wonders whether he should have just gone to religion.

He watches as Sirius holds it to his lips and breathes in as he lights it. He breathes out and Remus thinks it looks kind of magical, with Sirius and his too long hair and high cheekbones framed by the tendrils of smoke escaping from his mouth, surrounded by all the trees in the late autumn light.

He only realises he’s been staring when Sirius holds out the joint to him. ‘You want a drag?’

His mind is saying _no_ but he reaches out and takes it between long fingers.

The smoke burns as it hits the back of his throat. He tries not to cough but fails, and his eyes water.

James laughs and takes the joint from his hand.

‘You’re allowed to cough, you know.’ Sirius says. Remus does.

He looks down at the ground and his brown hair falls in his eyes and he coughs again when he feels Sirius’ fingers brush it away.

 

By the time they stand up to head back to school Remus’ hands are no longer shanking and he’s laughing too hard at something James said about their headmaster to worry about getting caught sneaking back in.

 

 

The first time Sirius comes to his window in the middle of the night he’s sixteen and trying to get enough sleep before his history test the next day, but only managing to stare at the ceiling above his bed.

He hears three stones hit his window before he realises someone must be throwing them.

He’s expecting his mum to have locked herself out. He’s not expecting Sirius with his long hair and a handful of stones standing below his window grinning up at him.

‘Sirius, what-‘

‘Get dressed. We’re going exploring.’ Remus looks at him in surprise and thinks _there is no way he is getting me out there_ but he puts on his jeans and laces up his shoes carefully. He closes his window and draws the curtains and makes his way down the stairs past his mum’s room to the front. He figures she’s asleep and he’s not melodramatic like he knows Sirius is and he’s not going to climb through a window for no reason even though he knows Sirius would love it.

He’s waiting in front of the door when Remus opens it. He’s swaying slightly and in the dim light Remus can tell his eyes are red rimmed and watery.

‘Sirius,’ Remus grabs his shoulder to make him pay attention ‘are you drunk?’

The only reply he gets is Sirius laughing and grabbing his wrist _‘Let’s go’_

Remus rolls his eyes and lets himself be dragged through his tiny front garden, past all the different coloured flowers and plants his mum has managed to plant in the small amount of ground, and then down the steep road leading away from his house. He knows better than to ask where they’re going.

Sirius Black is a force unto himself, Remus thinks.

From the hill that Remus lives on they can almost see the whole town, where he has spent his entire life. It’s small enough to be boring and filled with boring people, but big enough to be able to avoid most of them. They can see the school over the far-end of town, and if he squints, Remus can just make out the outline of Sirius’ family estate.

They walk too long to actually be going anywhere and Remus suspects Sirius just wants to get away from his house and family. He’s only been to Sirius’ house once, but the austere halls reeked of old money and the high ceilings made everything colder than it needed to be. 

He watches the way the moonlight reflects off Sirius’ dark hair. He looks at him in the way he knows he shouldn’t look at boys, the way he thinks James looks at Lily and Peter looks at anyone who takes an interest. He looks at him the way he thinks he should look at girls, but Sirius is smiling in that way that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle and right then Remus could care less about what he should do.

Sirius turns to face him and Remus thinks maybe he could kiss him. He imagines how his lips would feel against his own chapped ones.

Then he imagines how Sirius would look at him. How he would probably pull away quickly and make some excuse for needing to leave.

Embarrassment burns deep in his stomach and flushes through his cheeks and he wonders _how could he even consider that?_

They walk around for hours until Remus can’t stop yawning and he’s sure both of their feet are aching and Sirius walks with him back to his house. He climbs up his mother’s trellis and in through his window because he didn’t bring a key, and he knows Sirius is laughing at him from the street.

He turns around once he’s in his room and says ‘go get some sleep Sirius.’

‘Of course.’ He says with his long hair and high cheekbones and Remus doesn’t sigh like a thirteen year old girl, _he doesn’t._

 

Remus manages three hours of sleep before he has to get to school. He’s tired and can’t stop yawning but Sirius turns up halfway through maths and he knows from the purple bags under his eyes and the mud on the cuff of his trousers that he hasn’t been home since he left him on the street underneath his bedroom window.

 

 

Sirius turns up regularly in the night after that. There’s rarely a month that passes when Remus doesn’t wake up to the _clink_ of stones against his windowpane and Sirius looking up at him from the road.

 

 

The second time Sirius gets suspended, they’re sixteen and he won’t tell anyone why. In the week he’s off campus, Remus asks him what happened a total of three times and if he’s okay a total of 34. James asks him what happened 72 times. 78 if they include the times he asked Sirius while he was sleeping. They don’t though.

As much as Remus wants to know what’s going on, he spends most of the week making sure James knows that Sirius doesn’t have to share what he’s not comfortable with, and just because he’s sleeping on his floor doesn’t mean he has to tell him everything. He gets through to him eventually.

And as much as Remus respects Sirius’ privacy, it doesn’t really count as invasive if he spends lunch with James and Peter trying to figure out what happened, does it?

He tries not to think the moral implications of investigating your friend.

By the third day of Sirius’ suspension, James has a list of dot-points at the back of his Latin notes of _Things we know about why Sirius was suspended and why he isn’t telling us by James, Peter and not Remus because he wouldn’t let me put his name on here._ Sometimes Remus wonders why he’s still friends with them.

They give up on the list by the fourth day, not being able to figure anything out past _That fifth year who doesn’t shower has a black eye but that’s okay because he’s a dick_ and _Frank Longbottom says he saw the whole thing after school on Friday and that Sirius just punched him out of nowhere, which seems pretty unlike Sirius and also Frank says a lot of shit._

 

Sirius returns on the Tuesday of the following week and doesn’t mention anything about the suspension past how boring it was waiting in James’ bedroom for him to get back from school every day.

 

Remus’ phone goes off in the middle of chemistry.

_(From: Sirius 11:49am) James says we can’t go to his house tonight anymore. His mum figured out what happened to her vase._

Remus smiles and rolls his eyes and shoves his phone back in his pocket. It buzzes again but he ignores it to try and focus on the different types of hydrocarbons written up on the board.

His phone keeps buzzing and he gives up on memorising the different types of acid-base reactions.

 _(From: Sirius 11:49am) Apparently she said ‘the next time one of your friends so much as sets foot in this house, I swear to god James, you’ll be out on the street._ Remus imagines if Sirius were saying that instead of texting he would be putting on an unnaturally high voice and have his hand on his waist and his hips cocked in that way he does whenever he tries to appear feminine.

 _(From: Sirius 11:50m) She’ll be over it by tomorrow though, I bet._ Remus agrees. She’s the nicest woman he’s ever met even if she is incredibly quick to anger.

_(To: Sirius 11:53) I don’t think Mrs Potter is physically capable of holding a grudge_

_(From: Sirius 11:54) Anyway_

_(From: Sirius 11:54) We need somewhere to go tonight and we can’t go to Peters because of his grandparents and we can’t go to mine._ Remus doesn’t need to ask why they can’t go to Sirius’ house.

_(From: Sirius 11:54) Can we go to yours?_

Remus thinks he should say no. The shit they get up to in James house is nothing he wants brought near his mother.

_(To: Sirius 11:54) Sure._

 

They turn up at Remus’ front door that night. James is laughing and stumbles when he walks in and Remus thinks he should have told them they need to behave in front of his mum.

They sit on his bedroom floor and pass around the bottle James brought and Remus is terrified his mum is going to walk in even though he knows she rarely comes up to his room.

He takes the bottle when it’s passed to him. It’s some sort of strong spirit that tastes awful and burns at the back of his throat.

They pass the bottle and they drink and they drink until the world goes out of focus. Peter passes out on the floor and James falls over trying to help Sirius haul him into Remus’ bed.

James falls asleep on the floor and any sense of responsibility Remus had has left him. Neither he nor Sirius make an effort to move him to the bed, but they care enough to cover him with a blanket.

Sirius talks too much, and Remus can’t really keep up, but then suddenly he’s asking “you wanna know why I punched Severus?” and Remus is momentarily taken aback, but he nods and wonders whether he knew everyone knew it was him that gave Snape the black eye, or was just too drunk to notice the slip.

“He was talking about you. He said- he called you a fag.” Sirius says in a rush. “He fucking came up to me and, I don’t know, is that how he thinks he’s going to make friends? By talking shit about my actual friends? By putting you down? 

“He said ‘you know, you should watch out for Remus. I heard he was a fag. You wouldn’t want him to-’ and then my fist was in his face before I knew what was going on and, and- fucking hell.” Sirius lifts the nearly empty bottle they had been sharing to his lips. Remus watches him in stunned silence.

“I mean,” he continues “not that there’s anything wrong with that. It was just the way he fucking said it, you know?”

Remus nods and Sirius looks at the floor. They sit in silence until Sirius starts talking about the girls from the school down the road and _how about Marlene Mackinnon’s legs in that skirt of hers, Remus?_ and Remus just stares at the posters on his bedroom walls and he thinks he kisses Sirius to make him shut up, but he’s not sure.

He’s sick at some point after that. Maybe right after that. He stands on legs that aren’t sure how to keep him up before emptying his stomach into the upstairs bathroom toilet. There’s nothing much in his system but the alcohol and it burns at the back of his throat and nose as it comes up. He regrets ever having picked up the bottle, but then Sirius is kneeling behind him. He holds his hair away from his face and strokes his back and asks if he’s alright, and he thinks maybe it was worth it.

Remus wonders how he can seem so pulled together after having so much of what he thinks might have been whisky.

He wakes up the next morning pressed up to Peter’s side in the bed. His head hurts and his mouth is dry and the world still isn’t entirely in focus. He gets up to find water and realises there’s vomit on his shirt and James and Sirius are curled up on his floor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowzas this took a while because i almost gave up on it but it's here now in all its shitty shitty glory. thankyou to everyone who's bothered to read it i lov u all

It’s 3:47 am an the morning of Sirius’ seventeenth birthday and they sit facing each other over a pile of greasy fast food wrappers and an even greasier table. Remus can’t remember a time when there weren’t bags under Sirius’ eyes, but he does think he can remember when his cheeks didn’t look so hollow. He yawns and stares at the cold fries on the tray in front of them and wonders if they would still taste alright.

“You’ll have to face them at some point” Remus says before yawning again. “They’re your parents.”

Sirius laughs, the way he does whenever he doesn’t want to think about something, and says “not if I run away.” And Remus knows he’s joking, like he is every time he mentions something like this, but in some way he knows he not joking, and in some way he’s terrified Sirius will just up and disappear one day and leave his life as quickly as he came into it.

He worries the skin of his lips between his teeth and tries to gauge what Sirius is thinking from his expression.

He gets nothing.

“I’d go with you,” Remus laughs quietly and goes along with it, hoping if he can convince himself it’s only a joke, then maybe he can convince Sirius, too. “But I’d miss my mum too much.”

Sirius looks at him with something like sadness, or maybe it’s frustration, behind his eyes and laughs. ‘Shame. Maybe it’s not worth going then.’ He lets his head tilt back and his eyes drift to the ceiling while they sit there in silence. They’re the only people sitting inside, with most customers at this hour being truck-drivers and long-distance commuters ordering coffee from the drive-through.

They sit like that for probably too long, with Sirius staring at the ceiling and Remus listening to the hum of the soft-serve machine, until Sirius stands up abruptly, says “come on” and takes their nearly empty tray in one hand and grabs Remus’ wrist with the other.

It’s cold when they push through the glass door and walk out into the night. The wind makes them pull their heavy coats further around themselves. It bites at where Remus’ face is exposed and turns his cheeks red. It has nothing to do with how their hands brush together when they walk to close to each other, _really, it doesn’t._

They walk aimlessly to keep warm until eventually Sirius whines “Reeeeeemus, my feet hurt.”

Remus shoves at him lightly. “This was your idea arsehole” he tells him, but they end up sitting down anyway, between the highway that runs past their town and the woods surrounding it.

The grass is damp when they sit and the dew soaks into where their clothes make contact with the ground, making Remus wince as Sirius flops his whole body down into it. He lies spreadeagled on the ground and Remus thinks surely he has to be cold. He leans his head against Remus’ knee and all he wants to do is run his hand through the wavy dark hair that spills from Sirius’ head onto his lap. But he knows he can’t.

“You’re seventeen.” He says. Sirius smiles.

“One more year.” Comes his reply.

‘Till what?’ Remus knows the answer. 

‘I’ll be in fucking India before they even know I’m gone.’

Remus knows, has always known, how Sirius needs to escape his parents. He knows how much he wants to leave this town and never return, and he knows it’s selfish but he wishes he would stay.

Maybe he’ll leave too.

 

The sun is rising when he climbs back in through his bedroom window. The sky is illuminated with a faint pink glow that contrasts with the rest of the dark sky, and Remus would probably think it was pretty if he wasn’t so tired. The clock on his bedside table reads 5:49 and he groans as he registers it’s only a few hours till he needs to be at school.

It’ll be fifth period before Sirius shows up, he knows.

Remus takes a shower and almost falls asleep turning the taps off. He climbs into bed and thinks maybe he’ll tell his mum he’s sick before she leaves for work, that he’s got a headache or feels nauseous and that he couldn’t possibly go to school today.

 

 

Remus thinks that it’s bullshit that they still have to go to weekly chapel when exams are on. He knows protesting is futile, though.

Sirius, however, takes the opportunity to complain like it’s the worst thing to ever happen to him.

 

“It’s just… we’re already so pressed for time, and then we have to waste an hour _praying_. I mean, we could be doing something so much more productive.” 

“Sirius, we all know you’d just spend this time getting high in the woods.” James says.

“And the _hymns_. All the fucking _singing._ ” he continues like James hadn’t spoken. A teacher shushes them as they walk in through the heavy wooden door into the chapel. “You’d think they could at least put a heater or two in here.” He finishes saying entirely too loudly, and Remus elbows him in the stomach.

He agrees with him though. He can see his breath as he sits down between Sirius and Peter on the wooden pew.

Peter keeps bouncing his knees up and down and it’s _infuriating_ , but he can’t blame him for trying to keep warm.

 

Sirius sings all the hymns too loud and out of tune and Remus would probably elbow him in the stomach again for being disrespectful if wasn’t focusing so hard on stopping himself from laughing.

 

 

Remus’ last exam is on the Friday, a day after everyone else had finished because Calculus just _had_ to be the only exam on Friday. He gets to the exam hall just as they start checking student ID’s and hands his over to a teacher he doesn’t know the name of. When he reaches out to take the small piece of plastic back he realises his hands are shaking.

_they’re just mock exams_ he tells himself and wills his hands to be still. _you’ll be fine_.

 

When he gets out of the hall the sky is beginning to turn dark, and the horizon is yellow and purple where the sun is disappearing behind it. 

 

He doesn’t realise he misread the last question until he’s walking home.

He tries not to think about it, distracting himself by playing with the cuffs of his blazer, loosening his tie and undoing his top button, scraping the dust out of his pockets, buttoning his shirt back up and straightening his tie. He kicks the ground as he walks and reaches up to play with his tie again before deciding to take it off completely and stuff it into his pocket.

He thinks the question was worth five marks, or maybe six, and if the test was out of seventy, or was it seventy-two? Maybe he’d get one mark for working out the derivatives, but then the other four, five? marks, that would bring his total score down by-

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out and looks down at the caller ID before answering.

“What do you want, Sirius.” He asks as he starts climbing the stairs to his room.

“How was calc?”

“Enthralling.” He says with as little enthusiasm as possible. He thinks he hears Sirius stifle a laugh.

“The Prewitt’s are having some people over. James and I are going to go over later. You want to come?”

“I don’t know.” Remus says, knowing fully well he’s going to end up going. “I’ve got some things to do.”

“Come _on_ , Remus,” he says in the way he always does. It makes him smile when he realises that Sirius only sounds like that when Remus is being boring, that it’s a voice he only uses on him. “You’re not blowing us off again to eat easy mac in your boxers and re-watch all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

So Remus sighs into the palm of his hand and says “fine.”

 

The first thing Remus notices when he enters the Prewitt’s house is the number of sweaty teenagers packed into the front room, and realises, like always, Sirius had very much under exaggerated the situation. The last time Remus had ended up at a party was because Sirius hadn’t stopped pestering him all day about going to James’ place with “only a few other people, you probably know them, I think one of them is in your chemistry class.”

He’d spent most of that night being angry at Sirius, but this time he’s too exhausted to really care, and maybe also likes the lengths Sirius will go to so he hangs out with him.

He bumps into Frank and takes a bottle of something that tastes too sweet and not enough like alcohol and more than a bit like watered down piss when he’s offered.

James sneaks up on him from behind and tackles him into something resembling a hug, and Remus has to use all his strength to stop them from toppling over.

“MollysaidLillywastalkingaboutme” he says all in one breath once he’s disentangled himself from Remus, and he doesn’t have enough time to figure out what the fuck he just said before James is continuing with “and, and I saw her before, and she smiled at me. She _smiled at me_ Remus. And then- but then I lost her, but-” James takes a sip from the cup of vibrant blue liquid he’s holding. “But I’m going to find her.”

And with that, James is lost to the crowd and Remus isn’t entirely sure of what to do.

 

He finds Sirius after lapping the house aimlessly three times. He’s sat on one of the old couches between two people he vaguely recognises from school, who are all part of a larger circle of people sitting on the floor who Remus doesn’t recognise at all.

Sirius’ Face lights up when Remus pushes his way through the sweaty bodies to stand at the side of the couch. “You came!” He says, a bit too excitedly and Remus wonders how much he’s already had to drink.

“I said I would, didn’t I?” and is suddenly uncomfortable when he realises most of the eyes from the floor are on him.

“Guys! Guys, this is Remus.” Sirius says turning his attention back to the circle. “Remus is great. He watches Disney films unironicaly and can tell anyone to go fuck themselves while still being polite.” Some of the kids laugh.

“Uh, thanks?” He wants to ask why Sirius thinks those are his most defining characteristics, but he’s being grabbed by the arm and dragged towards the kitchen before he’s even registered Sirius standing up.

“You have to try the punch. It’s awful.” He tells him. Remus sips at the cup of blue liquid he gets handed once they reach the kitchen and thinks for once Sirius is right.

“You’re right.” He says as he takes another sip. “It’s disgusting.” 

It’s still not as bad as the thing Frank handed him when he first got here, he thinks.

 

Sirius disappears after about twenty minutes and so Remus makes his way around the house with a lack of anything better to do. He eventually has enough to drink for his nerves to dissipate and to feel like he’s enjoying himself, if also slightly nauseous.

 

He doesn’t hear anything from Sirius until a girl with orange hair taps him on the shoulder and asks “are you Remus?”

“Yeah?”

“I think your friend wants you, the one with long hair?” She looks halfway between worried and annoyed.

“Oh.” Remus doesn’t know what to say. “Is he okay?”

“He seems pretty upset. He was asking for you, though.”

“Oh.” He says again, because he can’t really get his brain to focus, and also because he doesn’t really know what to say, or do.

“He’s in the in the bathroom.” He thinks she looks a bit exasperated, and he realises she’s probably waiting for him to go.

“Thanks.”

 

When he opens the bathroom door he finds Sirius sitting on the floor with red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks. He looks up when the door opens, and attempts a smile when he sees Remus, but his face only crumples into a sob.

He wills his brain to cooperate, because he knows that he needs to help Sirius, that he needs to do something, or say something, but his mind won’t focus.

“You okay?” he asks and thinks no, that’s not it, there’s a pretty obvious answer to that question.

Sirius nods, and then shakes his head. 

“I hate her, I hate her so much, she’s- she’s always been so horrible to me and Reg, always wanting us to be this-” he makes a gesture with hands that Remus doesn’t understand “her idea of perfect, and she would hate it when I wasn’t, if I was myself. And I hate her, but she’s my mum. And I still love her, and I miss her when I don’t go home for a week.

“I just- I Just- I want to never have to deal with her shit again, and I just want things to be like they were when I was a kid, when she was still proud of me, and it’s- I don’t know what to do-” He breaks off into sobs, and if Remus thought he didn’t know what to say before, he definitely has no idea now, so he just lowers himself down onto the tile floor next to him and pulls the shaking boy into his arms.

He could only be half an inch or so shorter than Remus but he feels so small pressed up against his chest crying into his neck.

 

They sit like that until Remus feels his legs go numb, listening to the hum of the fluorescent lights and the rest of the house gradually becoming quieter and quieter as people leave.

“I don’t want to go home.” He hears from where Sirius’ face is pressed against his shoulder when he finally breaks the silence. His voice sounds so small and broken Remus almost thinks he wants to cry, too.

 

He tells Sirius to stay at his place, because of course he does, because there’s no way he’s letting him go back to his own house alone when he’s like this. He tells him his mother won’t mind him turning up drunk and unannounced, but he knows she will.

He prays she’s asleep by the time they get back.

They stumble through the streets away from the Prewitt’s, who Remus hadn’t actually seen the whole time he was in their house, and up the hill towards his own house. He keeps an arm around Sirius’ waist to steady him so he doesn’t fall over while they walk, because as much as he’s had to drink, Sirius has had much, much more.

It’s nice, anyway, feeling this close to another person. He thinks maybe he shouldn’t be noticing the way his friend feels pressed up against his side, how he feels so warm and soft and- 

-and is vomiting onto his shoes.

 

 

When they finally reach Remus’ front door he has to try four times before he can get the key in to unlock it.

He half guides, half carries Sirius up the stairs and deposits him on his unmade bed and doesn’t think about how at home he looks amongst the pale blue bedsheets he’s had for the better part of a decade.

He grabs a blanket and turns to head back down the stairs and sleep on the couch when hears shuffling from the bed and then:

“Please don’t leave.”

He thinks he should probably pretend he didn’t hear him, keep walking and go sleep alone, because they’re drunk, and because this seems like it might be crossing some sort of line, might be some sort of admittance.

But Sirius sounds so sincere for once in his life that the voice in the back of his mind telling him _no_ isn’t anything more than a faint whisper.

And so he climbs into the bed he’s had since he was a child, next to his best friend, and if maybe he takes too long to fall asleep because he keeps looking at the way his dark eyelashes twitch against his pillow and how pretty his mouth is when he isn’t talking, well, nobody can really blame him.


End file.
